Liberty Galati orders a new Multi-Purpose Interrupted Cooling (MULPIC) system and a water treatment plant for its heavy plate mill line in Romania. MULPIC is an in-line plate cooling system designed to reach the cooling rates and and temperature drops required for plates of varying product dimensions, expanding Liberty Galati’s product range and improving product quality.
Liberty Galati is the largest integrated steel plant in Romania. The production facility is fully integrated, starting from raw materials, sintering, blast furnace, meltshop, heavy plate mills, hot strip mill, cold rolling complex, and galvanizing and organic coating lines. Construction for the heavy plate mill started in 1961, and the first production milestone was inaugurated two years later. Liberty Galati has a nominal annual capacity of 3 million tons of hot rolled quarto plates.
Precise and Uniform Cooling
MULPIC is an in-line and integrated plate cooling system, combining with a complete mechatronics package, bringing together machinery with smart process control technology. The system comprises high precision valves with large flow range, high water nozzle density, and actuators with advanced flow control valves, crown, and edge control functions. This guarantees superior cooling performance and uniform temperature along the length and width of the plate.
This state-of-the-art accelerated cooling installation represents another milestone in Liberty Galati’s strategy to expand its portfolio of high value-added products and increase production flexibility and profitability. The accelerated cooling system is essential for modern plate mills, like the ones here at Galati, to produce higher strength and value-added grades which require higher cooling rates and greater cooling accuracy. The project will be completed next year and will allow us to respond to our customers’ demand for higher value and quality products.”
Sandip Biswas
CEO of Liberty Primary Steel and Mining
The tailor-made water treatment plant consists of several pump groups installed to supply cooling water to the MULPIC machine. The installed pumps are partly frequency-controlled and can switch between different pump groups within seconds. This reduces maintenance requirements and improves the uniform cooling of the plate.
Product Quality Improvement
Controlled water distribution with a cooling accuracy of up to 12°C allows for the processing of any combination of plate thicknesses from 8 to 80 millimeters and widths from 1,500 to 4,150 millimeters. The plates’ excellent temperature and flatness uniformity results in higher strength steel grades and improved product quality.
We are continuing our transformation to green steel while modernizing and further developing our operations. Our investment in this new unit is yet another step forward by our Galati team towards our long-term goals. Along the way, we are pleased to collaborate with partners with the highest expertise, such as Primetals Technologies who have developed some of the most advanced cooling technologies.”
Ajay Aggarwal
President of Europe, Liberty Steel Group and
Chairman of the Board Liberty Galati
The accelerated in-line cooling and thermomechanical rolling result in immense savings in alloying materials. A reduction of 25 to 50 percent in alloying elements is achieved in higher strength steel grades, resulting in lower energy usage and environmental impact associated with the mining, extraction, and processing of the alloying elements.
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